A short external stair leads to a staircase in the thickness of the wall on the south side, by which we approach the Chapel.  A brass plate on the right refers to some children’s bones found in the reign of Charles II.  They were identified, somewhat conjecturally, with the remains of Edward V and his brother who disappeared so mysteriously at the accession of Richard III, and were removed to Westminster Abbey in 1678.  Ascending the stair we come to the passage which led from the palace to

The Chapel of St. John (Pl.  VIII).

The chapel is the largest and most complete now remaining in any Norman castle, and must have seen the devotions of William the Conqueror and his family.  It is 55 feet 6 inches long by 31 feet wide, and 32 feet high, and is vaulted with a plain arch.  There are four massive columns on either side and four in the apse.  The south aisle, as we have seen, communicated with the palace, and an upper aisle, or gallery, similarly opened into the

State Apartments

of the White Tower, which we reach by a circuitous route through a passage round the walls, only wide enough for one person at a time, and a circular, or newel, stair in the north-east turret, gaining at every turn glimpses of the extensive stores of small arms.  The second floor is divided into two large apartments, not reckoning the chapel; in the eastern wall of the smaller or Banqueting Chamber, is a fire-place, the only one till recently discovered in any Norman Keep.  A second and third have of late years been found in the floor below, but the whole building was designed for security, not for comfort and in spite of the use of wooden partitions and tapestry must have been miserable as a place of residence.  On leaving St. John’s Chapel we enter

The Armoury.

In connection with the Armouries, it should be noted that the present collection of arms and armour had its origin in that formed at Greenwich by King Henry VIII, who received many presents of this nature from the Emperor Maximilian and others.  He also obtained from the Emperor several skilled armourers, who worked in his pay and wore his livery.  English iron in former days was so inferior, or the art of working it was so little known, that even as far back as the days of Richard II German and Italian armourers were the chief workmen in Europe.  It should be remembered that the earlier kind of armour chiefly consisted of quilted garments, further fortified by small pieces of leather, horn, or metal.  So far from the invention of gunpowder having driven out armour, if we may credit the story of the earliest employment of that explosive, it was at a date when plate armour was hardly in use, certainly not in large pieces.  What actually did cause the disuse of armour was the change in ideas as to the movement of troops and the large quantity of armour which was made in the sixteenth century, and consequently the inferior make.  In England